Learning the Ladder

He said it's easy. You just take off your clothes and the rest is fate. These lips once my own now belonging to what broils underneath. We can lick the spoon. If we're quiet. We can taste the dough. But we'll never live to see it rise.

But aren't we always naked?
You never are so long as I'm alive.

Why don't I believe you even as with such conviction you say it.

Only because I know every truth is dependent upon how close we were to what we wanted. And we never even got close.

The paper dolls lay next to scissors. I know it's not my fault. Because they never worked in my hand. The mold facing the wrong direction.

The last laugh mine, but hardly satisfactory.

And there you are with your beard and all your times. Just like a real person.

Your hair telling lies your eyes contradict.

I wish you were better now. But I know you're not.

I fall. To learn the ladder again.

Not to go up, but to remember what down is.

Everything gone, but nothing is.

It's May again. And I am lost. So high on the lies I've come to believe.